I cannot believe, given my life trajectory, that more people hadn't recommended this book to me previously.

This is one of those books that I wish I had written. I basically cried all through the last 30 pages or so.

Lily is a fourteen year-old runaway, who, with her jail-broken caregiver Rosaleen, head to a town two hours away with nothing but a photograph and a name. Eventually, they stumble upon a bee keeping farm and are met with the mercy of three sisters, August, May, and June. We learn about April who has passed, and Lily quickly becomes a Bee apprentice. Set in the civil rights movement, we see snippets of this change, May's wailing wall filled with atrocities against people of color, and the turmoil of the black community from a young person's perspective. All the while, Lily learns about how to care for bees, and ultimately, how to care for and heal herself.

Kidd's imagery and descriptions are unique yet spot on - she has a way of describing ordinary things that bring them so clearly to my mind in ways I wouldn't have thought to describe them - like Rosaleen's lip protruding "like a sunset" and many others. Throughout the whole story, I feel we know very little about what Lily looks like other than she is white with dark hair (her hair is only mentioned a handful of times). I wonder if physical descriptions were kept light so that we readers could insert ourselves in the places where we felt we most fit. So that each of us has a chance to be Lily and be mothered by these four women.

This is a beautiful book, and probably in my top 10-15 favourites of all time. I'd recommend it to anyone, though I'm not sure it would be a wise read for anyone who has recently lost a loved one (but if you have lost someone, especially a parent, I implore you to read this book).

Pairings: Poisonwood Bible, The Supremes at Earl's all you can eat, The Bluest Eye, Invisible Man.